Research, data and specialists opinion suggests the economic contraction caused by Covid-19 could push an additional 500 million people — about 8 percent of the Earth’s population — into poverty, reversing 30 years of economic improvement. An additional 130 million people could be on the brink of starvation by the end of 2020.
… the economic contraction caused by Covid-19 could push an additional 500 million people — about 8 percent of the Earth’s population — into poverty, reversing 30 years of economic improvement. “We were surprised at the sheer scale of the potential poverty tsunami that could follow Covid-19 in developing countries,”
“I want to stress that we are not only facing a global health pandemic but also a global humanitarian catastrophe,” warned David Beasley, the executive director of the United Nations World Food Program. “Millions of civilians living in conflict-scarred nations, including many women and children, face being pushed to the brink of starvation, with the specter of famine a very real and dangerous possibility.” A new study by the WFP found that lockdowns and the economic recession caused by Covid-19 may exacerbate an already dire worldwide hunger crisis, almost doubling the number of people who could go hungry, pushing a total of 265 million people to the brink of starvation by the end of the year.
Date: April 2020
Source: https://reliefweb.int/report/world/estimates-impact-covid-19-global-poverty
U.N. warns:
An additional 130 million people could be on the brink of starvation by the end of 2020 as a result of the outbreak and its economic ramifications.